MMORPGs I’d Love To See

Intellectual Properties (IP) are hot business for MMORPGs. Last year we saw a Conan and a Warhammer game and we’ve got MMOs based on Star Wars, Star Trek and DC Comics coming up. Whilst I don’t think IP makes or breaks a game (it always boils down to gameplay) it can certainly carry a lot of appeal. Here’s some games I’d love to see (in no particular order):

Mass Effect MMORPG

Mass Effect was a truly awesome sci-fi RPG, I loved it to bits and I can’t wait for the sequel. Still, every time I play it I just keep thinking “wouldn’t this be even better as a MMO?”. It has such an engrossing atmosphere and believable universe and the gameplay mechanics are just begging to be MMO-ized. I’m dying to see a great sci-fi MMORPG and this IP is established enough to be interesting yet new enough to be flexible and accommodating.

Dark Tower MMORPG

I really enjoy Steven King’s Dark Tower novels and I think they would make a perfect fantasy style MMO. A pretty crazy and screwed up one, sure, but good nonetheless. I can just imagine forming a ka-tet (group) and roaming the wilderness looking for crazy robot bears to kill. The unverise is being pretty well filled out with some excellent comics from Marvel at the moment so I’m sure there would be plenty of back story to use for material in a game version. Plus, Steven King is a complete sellout so I’m sure he would be happy to make something up

Diablo MMORPG

Probably the most clichéd of my desired games but I just can’t help it. I thoroughly enjoy a good ol’ hack ‘n slash isometric RPG and the Diablo universe is as good as any. It’s the main reason why I’m looking forward to Torchlight so much. In order to keep the game from becoming repetitive though, I think they’d really need to flesh out the classes and spells and create a vast, sprawling, seamless world.

Grand Theft Auto MMORPG

Bit of an odd one but I think a GTA MMO would be a hell of a lot of fun. Imagine having several huge cities all around the global (lets say Liberty City on the USA eastern coast, an LA style one on the west, a city in Europe, one in Russia and one in China) which you can travel freely around and war for control over against opposing gangs aka guilds. Complete freedom would be the trick to making the game work I think, no small order, but could be very interesting. Sell drugs or become a vigilante? Why not both!

Call of Cthulhu MMORPG

A H.P. Lovecraft 1920s Bioshock-esque style MMO would be truly awesome. Creepy as hell yet awesome. I can’t say that I’m a huge follower of Lovecraft but I do appreciate the survival horror style of genre with the interesting mix of occult and mystery. I think this sort of setting would be very unique to the MMORPG community and an adult theme with a more slow paced, quest and mystery orientated atmosphere would be very welcome.

8 Comments

A cthulhu mmo would be a challenge to design but it could make a complete change of pace and a real alternative. Maybe a sanity system, elaborate investigation quests, you could ally to various gods and get abilities based on that. Loads of potential

Some of my fave books are being made into a MMORPG, the Otherland series.

It ran for 4 massive books(about 1,000 pages each).

I am really curious to see it, but I’m not sure if I’ll like it.

While the books are awesome, it revolves around a gigantic virtual “system” that contains hundreds of separate worlds(many are dark/twisted versions of real life or old stories- I.E. one world is War of the World’s where the aliens never died from becoming sick, another is a bizarre twisted Wizard of Oz where there are hundred’s of Dorothies bred as sex slaves)

I would want to see Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Earthsea” books made into an MMO. It’s a solid world with the most unique mythologies/history/economy/governments and while it has dragon’s and wizards, her version are so unique. I really think it could make for a great MMO.

Also the world fits so nicely as the entire world is made of of many different sized islands. No big continents and such.

Dune and Bladerunner would be awesome. I think Dune is pretty well establish to be MMO-ized fairly easily. Blade Runner has an amazing world but would need some work to flesh it out. The suggestion made me recall the Blade Runner PC game from the late 90s. I loved it and it really captured the atmosphere for the film. Here’s the wiki link:

Having done part of my Master’s thesis (before it was canned by my department) on the Dark Tower series, I can wholeheartedly say that the universe is ripe for adapting into new media, the comic books were just the start. A film series is likely next, but an MMO in Mid-World and End-World…I can only imagine how much time that would suck from me.

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Gordon was born on the mean-streets of suburban Holland and learned to fist fight without remorse in steel cage matches at an early age. He now lives in Edinburgh with his wife and their imaginary Nigerian bodyguard, Mr Itunu.